


The Hotel Horizon

by astrangerenters



Category: NewS (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Future, M/M, Nuclear Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-29
Updated: 2011-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-21 22:44:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerenters/pseuds/astrangerenters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Hotel Horizon sits at the end of a mostly dirt road, broken bits of asphalt the only indication that there was once a highway there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hotel Horizon

The Hotel Horizon sits at the end of a mostly dirt road, broken bits of asphalt the only indication that there was once a highway there. The bricks are crumbling, and the razor wire dulls with every passing year. The well’s drying up, and if the government man’s right, the water will be gone and they’ll be shutting down before the decade’s out.

Accommodations this far to the northeast are hard to come by though, so a steady stream of refugees, scavengers, and traders come through the gates. It’s been months since Shige’s accepted the paper money the government issues. The war down south has been bleeding the capital dry, and the money’s better kindling than currency now.

In exchange for a room and a meal, Shige now takes bits of scrap metal. Masuda can use those to mend the fence. Shige also takes raw vegetables he knows have been stolen from some wealthy landowner’s holdings. Koyama’s always grateful for something he can use to cook that doesn’t come out of a government-issued can.

The book he’s reading at the front desk has half the pages missing. Shige wonders if his grandfather or great-grandfather took them to keep the fire burning, to keep the Hotel Horizon going. He doesn’t know what happened to get the couple in the book together, but he doesn’t care. Sometimes love just happens. He’s interrupted anyhow when he hears the metal gate scraping the gravel outside. Ryo in the sniper tower’s signaled that the guest is okay to enter.

Since Shige can already hear footsteps on the porch, it must be a regular. Otherwise there’d have been a security search. He sets a worthless 5,000 yen bill back in the crumbling book and puts it down, grabbing the ledger for the guest to sign in. He gulps when the door opens, and it’s him.

Been almost a year since he’s been up in this part of the country. Always quiet, always polite despite his profession. Shige ignores the pistols at his hips, and the bloodstains on his jacket. It’s tough out there, even for scavengers like Yamashita. “Welcome to the Hotel Horizon,” Shige says, eyes focused on the ledger. Last time, Yamashita skipped out without paying. But Ryo’s let him through again. Maybe Ryo just knows.

Yamashita’s carrying a heavy-looking burden on his back, setting it down with a sigh on the other side of the check-in desk. “Room for the night, please.”

Shige’s already filling in the details. Yamashita. He’ll have 204. They managed to get some soap from a trader a week back - he knows the rooms in the north wing have fresher linens. He sets the pencil down, watching Yamashita go through his bag. Guessing by the amount of things rattling around inside, Shige thinks Yamashita’s coming from a haul rather than heading to one.

He doesn’t know much about scavenging. The Kato family’s run the Horizon for as long as there’s been a Horizon. Ever since the bombs. Maybe before them. He doesn’t go where there aren’t any roads. He doesn’t go where the law doesn’t bother. But Yamashita does.

Yamashita shows up where there’s been a skirmish, picks at bodies, looks for a glint of gold, a gem. Shige’s not enamored with the thought of a career made at the expense of the dead who’ll never get buried.

Yamashita sighs, setting down a sack of sugar on the counter. Shige ignores the government stamp. He might have stolen it from a government caravan. Or he might have stolen it from a dead family, snatching it out of a mother’s arms from the side of the road. “Sugar?” is all he asks.

Yamashita looks up, dark rings around his eyes. Shige wonders what he sees out there, how he can wander from place to place. Shige wonders how he can live with himself. “Is it not enough?”

Shige shakes his head. “No, it’s fine.” It’s more like you’ve never paid up front before, he thinks, taking the sack from the counter and pencilling in “PAID” in the ledger. He grabs the 204 key from the hook. “Let me show you where you’ll be.”

Yamashita hoists his bag, and Shige can feel the man’s eyes on his back as they leave the office and head up the steps. He skips the one that’s rotting, making a mental note for Masuda to finally fix the damn thing. The second floor pathway’s dirty from the typhoon that came through a month back - basic repairs to the Hotel’s fence, guard tower, kitchen were more of a priority than sweeping the sludge from the walkways. Now it’s just soaked in, coating everything with a thin layer of mud.

He can hear Yamashita pause behind him while he fits the key in the door, jiggling it in the old lock and putting his weight into getting the warped wooden door open. Shige fumbles around in the dark, nearly falling over the tattered chair to find the oil lamp on the nightstand. The matches in his pocket are still good though, and he gets it lit. He heaves a sigh of relief. Tegoshi’s even made the bed, not just tossing the clean sheets onto the mattress. His staff can occasionally pull their weight around here.

He still isn’t meeting Yamashita’s eyes when he turns around, gesturing weakly to the room. “Will this do, sir?”

He listens as the man drags in his bag, setting down his guns on the nightstand. “Yeah. I think this is fine.” He clears his throat. “Slept in a cave last night, so yeah, I think this is perfect.”

“Glad you think so,” Shige says. “Well, if there’s anything you need...”

He makes to leave and finds Yamashita’s hand wrapped tight around his wrist. “Shige,” he says quietly.

“Yes, sir?” He’s a guest, Shige tells himself. If there’s anything he remembers his father telling him, it’s that anyone who comes through that gate is a guest of the Hotel Horizon. Someone to treat kindly, politely. With respect, regardless of where they’ve come from.

“I’m sorry,” Yamashita says. “I didn’t...I’ve been really busy.”

Yamashita smells like the roads that Shige’s never walked and the towns that he’ll never get to see. Shige knows the fence and the guard tower, the office and the rooms. He knows the kitchen and the drying-up well, and the promise over the radio that Japan will rise again.

He has a business to run, employees to manage, people whose safety he has to ensure. “I hope the room’s to your liking,” Shige says hastily, wriggling out of the man’s grip and closing the door behind him.

The book on the office counter doesn’t hold the same interest when he gets back, wondering if Yamashita murdered someone to get the sack of sugar.

\--

Ryo’s switching up in the tower with Koyama when Shige’s turn at the desk is up. He walks across the courtyard to his own room, and Ryo catches his arm. “Time for bed?”

Shige nods. “Massu’s got the desk.”

Ryo taps the rifle against his shoulder with a practiced rhythm. “Aren’t you wondering why I let him through? Could have shot him clean through before he came within 50 yards.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Shige asks, pausing under the flickering light at his doorstep.

Ryo just smiles. “Don’t think you’d forgive me is all. Night, boss man.”

Shige watches him stroll off for his own room, looking over his shoulder. There’s no sign of the oil lamp being lit in 204, and when he fits his key in the lock, it’s a waste of time. Lockpicking’s a scavenger’s art form.

He shuts the door and doesn’t bother with the matches for his own lamp. Yamashita’s mouth finds his in the dark, stealing his breath. All these months without word, wondering if he’s dead or alive. He’s tried so hard to forget, to convince himself that someone in Yamashita’s line of work isn’t reliable, isn’t worth worrying after.

But his hands are strong, sliding under Shige’s shirt, and Shige doesn’t want to think about where those hands have been or what those hands have done. Those hands know his skin, know just where to touch, even after weeks, even after months.

“Are you just passing through? Aren’t you always just passing through?” Shige manages to complain, trying to shove the man away from him.

“I won’t force you if you don’t want to,” Yamashita says, loosening his grip, taking his palm away from the front of Shige’s slacks.

“Stay,” Shige says, thankful for the darkness. It’s easier to beg when Yamashita can’t see his face. It’s easier to ignore his pride, too. “I’ve got my guys working 12 hours in that tower every day. Be nice to have three, make it 8 hours.”

Yamashita ignores him, fingers already working for the buckle of his belt. It’s lonely on the road, cold and unforgiving. Shige can hear Yamashita pull his trousers down, the metal buckle hitting the floor with a thud.

“Please?” Shige asks. “You get all your meals, clean bed, clean water.”

“And walls,” Yamashita whispers. “Can’t change anything when you stay hidden behind walls.”

“Can’t change anything stealing from the government. Or stealing from a corpse.” It’s quiet, and Shige’s body wants what his mind tells him not to want. It’s happened before with Yamashita. Is he going to let it happen again? “What’s with the sugar? Was that some kind of peace offering?”

“It’s...because you’re sweet?”

“You’re an asshole.”

He feels Yamashita’s travel-roughened hands on him again. “I know. I’m sorry.”

He’s an easy mark for a scavenger, Shige realizes. Yamashita sees through him, knows he’s not as prickly as he lets on. “Well’s drying up,” he says then, wondering if his chatting is turning the man off yet. “Only a few more years left in the Horizon anyway. Wouldn’t be more than indentured servitude, really.”

“Indentured what?”

“I’m saying you wouldn’t have to stay forever.”

This time Shige leans forward, closes the distance. His words have never changed Yamashita’s mind and offering the rest of himself really hasn’t either. But Shige would be a bad host, a bad manager if he didn’t ensure the complete satisfaction of a visitor to the Hotel Horizon.

\--

The bed’s cold when Shige wakes. “Bastard,” he thinks, pulling his clothes on hastily and throwing his door open wide. Tegoshi laughs at him as he hangs some bedsheets and towels on the line, watching as Shige takes the stairs two and three at a time up to 204.

 Door’s unlocked and the bag’s gone. The guns have disappeared from the nightstand. He nearly collides with Koyama as he emerges from the room.

“Whoa, whoa, slow down there, boss.”

Shige blinks. “Kei, is Ryo up in the tower? Why aren’t you on watch?”

Koyama pats his shoulder. “Don’t have a heart attack. Your guy’s on it.”

“My guy?”

He takes off running, metal stairs pinging with each step. He really doesn’t run enough, and he’s exhausted when he gets to the top, sees Yamashita turn around.

“Am I fired already?” he asks.

Shige’s still catching his breath. “You’ll stay?”

Yamashita cocks his rifle, looking back out, surveying the surrounding hills. Helping to keep the hotel safe and operational. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” Shige nods, feeling a weight lift, heavier than the one Yamashita had hauled through the gate the previous day. “Okay then.”

\--

The Hotel Horizon sits at the end of a mostly dirt road, broken bits of asphalt the only indication that there was once a highway there.

From the guard tower, you can see forever, but that’s only because there’s nothing left.


End file.
